


false spring falling

by jayburding



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Another hanahaki AU that no one asked for, Fluff and Angst, Hanahaki AU, Lack of Communication, M/M, Pining Victor Nikiforov
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 21:25:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12240894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayburding/pseuds/jayburding
Summary: He thinks of the stories he’s heard, and wonders if it would be so bad. A beautiful death, where the flowers grew and grew until they spilled out, and the petals bloomed over every surface while everything slowly slipped away.





	false spring falling

Unrequited love is painful at the best of times, or so Viktor has seen, though never experienced for himself, but Hanahaki takes things to a different level. There’s a vicious kind of beauty to it he supposes, but at its heart it’s masochism, and while he knows the rewards of short term pain for long term goals, he cannot imagine letting love fester in that way to such an extent that it grows into something else altogether.

Viktor never understood the people who let the flowers grow, who would rather face the thorns than cut them out, roots and all. But then, Viktor Nikiforov has never loved anyone that much. He has been the seed of it, seen desperate fans choking on petals and blooming with blue roses for love of him, but he cannot answer any of them. There’s no love in his life so powerful he would die for it, except perhaps the ice, and even that demanded his life, not his death.

Then Sochi happens. Then Yuuri Katsuki happens. Viktor, who has only experienced love as a series of painstakingly choreographed steps, is pulled into a dance by a drunk man who has no clue what his next step will be, and still moves so beautifully that Viktor is captivated. He can hardly keep up, and Yuuri seems so set on sweeping Viktor away that Viktor lets him.

The next day it’s like they’ve never met before. Yuuri shies away, turns his back on Viktor without saying a word, and Viktor watches his retreating back with a strange strain in his chest, like his heart has been dragged out from the safety of his ribs and is still being pulled further and further from him.

He turns away and pretends that he doesn’t feel it. His chest hurts, but it will stop soon.

Or not, as it turns out, because these things aren’t so simple. On his return from the Grand Prix Final, already planning for the next competition, Viktor breathes the scent of flowers and he knows, long before the twisting scratch creeps into his throat. His chest hurts as the wild growth slowly spreads through his lungs, coiling through the spaces so that his breath restricts, but his chest hurt regardless so it makes little difference to him.

He thinks of the stories he’s heard, and wonders if it would be so bad. A beautiful death, where the flowers grew and grew until they spilled out, and the petals bloomed over every surface while everything slowly slipped away.

But there were others. Ugly deaths, no flowers falling, only the creeping vines, twisting everywhere until the thorns cut straight through in all directions. Wheezing, desperate, fighting through the barbs and blood until the air cut off completely. No flower could make that beautiful.

It grows slowly enough that he goes to Nationals with no one any the wiser that he can’t breathe as deep as he could before. Yakov scolds him over his stamina but nothing more. On the ice, his focus gets worse and he drifts to the same banquet steps when he should be practicing. The only reason Yakov doesn’t given him a dressing down is because he thinks they’re next year’s programmes taking shape. If only. Viktor can’t think that far ahead. He can only think of Yuuri.

When it finally catches him, he’s thankfully alone, and bleeds petals over the ice before the flower choking him finally falls loose. He expected blue roses, like the fans who fell for him and thought that dying for a stranger was worth the chance that he might turn their way. They always breathed blue roses for him.

Instead, a pink camellia uncurls its damp petals in his palm. It’s almost like a rose.

_Longing._

Viktor throws it away and clears the petals up before anyone can see. His phone remains silent, and he doesn’t even know why he checked. It wasn’t like he’d left a number that evening, and even if he had, Yuuri has made it abundantly clear he had no interest. Sometimes he wishes he knew why, but there are so many reasons someone could find fault with him, he’s not so certain he wants to pin down the specifics.

He goes to the Euros and wins like it’s nothing, tracing a version of _Stammi Vicino_ over the ice that no longer longs for company in a lonely world so much as it begs the return of a partner lost. Loneliness in the wake of rejection is so much keener, and he knows he has made them feel it too as the music fades away. Afterwards, he excuses himself from the press conference and coughs out stems of cyclamen and meadow saffron until his throat is clear again.

_Resignation. My best days are past._

It’s a strange collection of symbols growing into the spaces in his lungs when he remains the unbeaten champion of the Grand Prix and the European Championships, with Worlds on the horizon where he’s expected to do the same.

Except he’s more and more certain that there’s nothing beyond that horizon. Once the season ends, he has no thought for what should follow, no choreography, no plans. Before, he would already be halfway through next season’s programmes, ready to pin down the intricacies over the summer. Now his mind is as full of flowers as his chest, thinking of a man who doesn’t think of him, and he cannot plot a step sequence through the overgrowth.

He should see a doctor. He knows that. But he also knows what they will suggest, and he can no more let it go than he can let them cut it out his chest, twisted roots and all. If they take it, he will be as he was before, and he cannot stand to go back to that, where his only love was the ice, and Makkachin was his one point of warmth in a world he had deliberately made cold to suit him. Even if it kills him, he can only move forward.

No, the doctors will not help. Turns out he’s a masochist after all.

At Worlds he does the same as he did at the Euros, but he can feel the strain this time. Flowers cluster in his chest and clog his throat as he gives the audience the final version of _Stammi Vicino_ that neither expects nor hopes for an answer, just revels in its own wistful loneliness.

_“Have you too been abandoned?”_

Afterwards, trying to breathe through the petals that have built up, with lack of oxygen bubbling black in his periphery and casting sparks across his field of vision, he knows that he has.

He almost hoped it would be then, that he would die in the aftermath of his exhibition while everyone else’s eyes were focused on the next performance. They would find him later, choked on asphodel and marigold, still beautiful in his grotesquery, bloody petals spilled over his costume and the last of his gold medals.

_Pain. Grief. My regrets follow you to the grave._

Instead, Yuri catches him rinsing his mouth out to clear the taste of blood and marigold, wheezing but able to breathe, and threatens him with violence if he makes everyone else sick too. Viktor promises it isn’t contagious, and smiles through Yuri’s blustering attempt to pretend he’s not at all concerned.

When they return to St Petersburg, Viktor goes home to Makkachin and stays there. The others are preparing for the World Team Trophy, which Viktor has declined to participate in, so no one will miss him for a few weeks yet. Yakov warns him about sanctions for next season, but it is hardly a threat when Viktor has no plans to still be here for next year.

He makes other plans though, so that when the inevitable happens everything can be dealt with as quickly as possible. Makkachin is the absolute pinnacle of importance: the dog sitter for his competitions is happy to pick up extra during the off season, and knows to come round if he doesn’t message her to say she’s not required that day. Hopefully it means Makkachin won’t be alone any longer than necessary when it happens.

He doesn’t expect a quick progression, but even so it all feels unbearably normal that first day or so home. His breathing is limited but still clear, and it’s only a few petals here and there, cyclamen again he thinks, but he’s not sure.

Soft white flowers stop up his throat one morning and as he tries to breathe through them, he wonders if that’s it. After fearing vines and thorns for so long, he finally suffocates gently on myrtle.

Eventually it recedes, but he comes to on the floor surrounded by myrtle blossoms, with Makkachin whining and licking his face.

_Love. Home. Duty._

He’s given up on two for want of one, and lost that as well. Viktor used to shake his head at the people who let themselves get this way rather than dealing with the problem, and now he’s at the low point he once scoffed at, suffocating on his own feelings because they will not be returned, yet still he cannot give up on them.

He’s a coward, and a hypocrite. Nothing new there then.

It should have been quick after such an acute attack, but instead he lingers another day, then another, breathing carefully around the growing clog all through his trachea, counting down his wheezing breaths like that will make it happen faster.

What comes first is a message, the first he’s received since his teammates are away competing.

_“I think you’ll want to see this,_ ” from a number he knows belongs to Chris.

There’s a link attached.


End file.
